Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking to some more people about retreats. About 6 months ago I challenged Jason Raitz to an "article debate" to discuss the topic of retreats in youth ministry. It wasn’t all that heated of a debate and it really didn’t generate much of a response on YMX.
Then in December, a website for Christian Camping picked up my side of the debate and sent it around to a thousand or so camp directors with an admonition to "talk about this article with your staff." So several hundred did just that… and a few people contacted me. (Which were mostly fine and positive.)
The point isn’t the article. The point is that the internet is powerful. I have rules for this very purpose. Rule #1 is "Don’t publish anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read." See, I’m ok with what I wrote about retreats. I’m not ashamed of a single word I published.
But there are things written and talked about on the internet all over the place that could cause people to lose their job, lose their status, or otherwise cause harm to themselves. See, when someone presses that "publish" button it’s not reversible. The internet is powerful, it spreads and multiplies. There really is no such thing as "internet privacy" for blog posts, myspace, facebook, xanga, livejournal, wordpress, typepad, blogger… it’s all "findable" and it all will one day be found. Even deleting it really won’t work since you can always use other sites to go backwards… most people don’t know that.
I’m very careful about what I say. I respect the power of the internet to make or break my life. I journal online for a lot of reasons. But I’m always aware that anything I say can and will be used against me at some point.
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